Video: Glamour's Shoppable Wall in the Meatpacking District

As part of its contribution to Fashion Week, Glamour Magazine has adorned a wall in New York's Meatpacking District with products that can be bought by anyone with a smartphone. The "Glamour Apothecary Wall" uses SnapTags, a type of scannable code developed by SpyderLynk. The tags appear next to a range of beauty and personal care items from the likes of Dove and Aveeno. Once purchased, the products ship to consumers for free.

The wall is on Washington Street, across from the Standard Hotel. On visiting, ClickZ was met by two smiling attendants Glamour has posted to help the clueless navigate the retail installation - really a souped-up poster. One of them, Michelle Bochynski, was game enough to record this two-minute video interview answering a few questions.

The technology will be featured in Glamour's upcoming March issue, with 21 advertisers displaying "Buy it Now" SnapTags next to their products. (ClickZ previously covered Glamour's plans for the issue.) In addition to buying the ads, readers will be able to "like" advertisers and share their purchases on Facebook.

One obstacle in the process: would-be shoppers must install a "Glamour Friends & Fans" app to scan and buy products - both for the wall and the magazine experience.

The effort is reminiscent of a mobile shopping experience created by Tesco in South Korea last year. In that experiment, subway travelers could scan QR Codes to purchase a variety of products from the retail giant.

Mobile payments provider Buck is supporting transactions for both the wall and Glamour's March issue, and pharmacist C.O. Bigelow is the magazine's branding and fulfillment partner. Earlier this week, C.O. Bigelow used Twitter to promote the wall:

Happy Valentine's Day- come celebrate with us and shop the Glamour Apothecary Wall at 5:30 across from The Standard Hotel

Glamour, a Conde Nast property, and its partners installed the Apothecary Wall on Tuesday, and it drew numerous mobile shoppers during a Fashion Week event later that evening. On Wednesday, when ClickZ visited, Michelle and her fellow (also white-jacketed) attendant did not appear to have had many recent visitors.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Until March 2012, Zach Rodgers was managing editor of ClickZ's award-winning coverage of news and trends in digital marketing. He reported on the rise of web companies, data markets, ad technologies, and government Internet policy, among other subjects.

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